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USTAR Announces New Round of TAP Award Recipients

USTAR

The Utah Science Technology and Research Initiative (USTAR) today announced the selection of its latest round of Technology Acceleration Program (TAP) grant awards. Thirteen companies, including three women-led companies and one rural company, and their technologies were recommended for funding through the competitive grant process that included panel reviews by industry and technical experts before being approved by USTAR’s Governing Authority.

Companies are located in Davis, Iron, Salt Lake, and Utah counties. This latest round of awardees includes projects in the automation and robotics, big data and cybersystems, energy and clean technology, and life science sectors.

“These projects represent innovative ideas with the potential to raise capital, create jobs, form strategic partnerships, and accelerate their technology commercialization to take life changing technology to market,” said Ivy Estabrooke, Ph.D., executive director of USTAR. “The TAP grant provides critical support in helping these companies develop to a stage where they can compete for private capital investments.”

USTAR’s TAP grant complements the organization’s entrepreneur incubation program and provides competitive grants to allow companies to accelerate their technology development. In doing so, the TAP grant prepares companies to compete for private capital, with the ultimate objective of spurring positive economic impact to the state through an increased tax base and creation of high-paying jobs.

Companies that were approved for TAP funding will now go through the contracting phase, with the awards, pending contract negotiation, finalizing in the coming weeks.

Spring FY2018 Award Winners:

Brilliant Points (Lehi) — This technology startup addresses connection and bandwidth limitations through a revolutionary new signaling system which increases bandwidth, reduces power, and reduces wiring.

Cosmas, Inc. (Springville) — This energy and clean technology firm converts waste, reduces engine emissions and refinery waste, and provides thermal stability. The unique technology is cross-applicable across a variety of industries, including agriculture, municipal government and automotive.

Dragon Shale (Cedar City) — This early-stage company is developing a process that allows the separation of petrochemicals such as propylene from the conversion of kerogen in oil shale.

IDbyDNA, Inc. (Salt Lake City) — IDbyDNA’s technology enables users to identify any microbe, from any sample, anywhere in the world. They are currently in the process of developing big data metagenomics sequence archives for diagnosis, discovery and industrial process control.

PEEL Therapeutics, Inc. (Salt Lake City) — Founded in 2015, the life sciences company utilizes nanotechnology drug delivery systems to treat osteosarcoma and aims to expand to treat all p53-deficient tumors (half of human cancer).

Rogue Technologies, LLC (Clearfield) — Rogue Technologies is incorporating advanced technology and innovation to increase reliability, decrease costs, and improve system performance of firearms for the modern warfighter.

Sustainable Energy Solutions, LLC (Orem) — Sustainable Energy Solutions is an energy technology company that aims to eliminate carbon emissions and other pollutants from fossil fuels while promoting better use of intermittent renewables through grid-scale energy storage.